It is impossible to pass this house without being affected with dismal associations. It stands in a most desolate stretch of houses, and the buried river in front seems to add to the forlornness. Since Lamb’s day the river has been covered in, and is, as it were, lost to view. But as we come to Canonbury it suddenly shows itself in a rather cheerful fashion between green banks and trees. Following it diligently, we see it rippling away between its banks--very pellucid on the whole, and not too broad for an active jumper to clear at a bound. It does not seem more than two or three feet deep. Here there are abundance of shady trees; and the houses have their little gardens coming down to the edge, with cosy seats, a stray Japanese umbrella spread--all exactly as if it were some real river and not an unpretending make-believe runnel. But has it not come all the way from “pleasant Hertfordshire,” and recreated many a cit’s heart, who of a summer’s evening has his afternoon tea at the river’s edge? Presently our old New River dives underground once more, and seems hopelessly lost. Here I was completely puzzled to find it again. With much difficulty and many inquiries, and many false scents too, I caught it up; when I saw it strike out across the country, meandering over a rich green pasture in diligent fashion, with a pretty open walk beside it. Thence it passed under the road, by some old-fashioned houses with gardens and overgrown with creepers. Here is the prettily-named region of the Green Lanes, and an old-fashioned line of houses called Paradise Row, which looks out on spreading “park-like meadows,” to use the auctioneers’ term; and here our river seems to have regularly got free and started off across the grass, never stopping till it reaches Stoke Newington. Here, however, it meets with rough usage; for the company have erected large buildings, pumping-engines, and reservoirs, and, as it arrives from Hertfordshire, it is detained prisoner until it accumulates in volume. In short, the amount of agreeable twirling and general aquatic vagaries pursued by the pleasant little stream during its course must be extraordinary. It brings pleasure and rurality wherever it goes. I was sorry to part company with it, and would gladly have pursued it further on its rural course. CHAPTER XXVII. THE QUEEN ANNE STYLE--OLD DOORWAYS. The so-called “Queen Anne style” has within the past few years displayed itself in every shape of extravagance, running riot, as it were, in fantastic freaks of brick. Entirely new quarters, as in the regions close to Sloane Street, have sprung up, entirely covered with these singular edifices. They seem to be dark, uncomfortable tenements, with peaks and gables of the most elaborate kind, and are certain to require constant repairs.